Best Gardening Tools

Some of the best garden tools available.

Where can I find the Best Gardening Tools?

For organic gardening the best garden tools are the ones that get the job done with the least effort. Going Green at Home lists their favorite garden tools.

We tested a lot of different tools in our organic echinacea operation and we worked them overtime, some held up well, some... not so much.

You don't need to spend a lot of money on organic gardening tools. Other than a tiller, few power tools are required for organic gardening, just the basics are necessary and most of the "power" comes from the person on the other end of the tool.

We did have one expensive tool that was worth every penny we paid for it and that was a Kubota tractor. Of course our "garden" was 7 acres, most of which hadn't been cultivated in more than 50 years.

Otherwise our tools consisted of a variety of shovels, our favorite hoe (discussed below), more than one backpack sprayer, a wheelbarrow, weed pullers, pruners and rakes.

Here are some of our "must haves".

• Hula Hoe

  It's at the top of the list because it is our favourite long handled hoe.
  
  This hoe has a loop of metal that you pull just under the surface of the soil and it cuts the top of the weed off. When the weeds are young it works quite nicely to kill most varieties.
  
  A close relative of the hula hoe is the Dutch Hoe. I've also heard this kind of hoe referred to as a stirrup hoe, swivel hoe, action hoe and double action hoe. No matter what you call it, it's one of the best gardening tools going.



• Garden Bandit

  This is a small hand tool that works on the same principle as the swivel hoe. A thin metal band about an inch wide and a foot long, bent to form a loop then secured to a handle.The loop easily slides just under the top of the garden soil to cut off any unwanted new growth. Love it for raised beds and container gardening.



• Backpack Sprayer

  An invaluable tool for the natural gardener and for fertilizing organic gardens. After steeping a giant manure teabag (well rotted cow manure wrapped in landscaping fabric or a leg of pantyhose) in a 50 gallon drum of rainwater for a day or two, Joe filled the backpack sprayer and would give each and every one of the 40,000 echinacea plants a burst of organic nutrients.



• Hound Dog Weeder

  For deep tap roots we used the Hound Dog weeder. We found that it worked great for established weeds when used properly.
  
  First, the tool needs to be properly placed directly over the middle of the root, smack dab in the middle of the plant.
  
  Second, the weeds are easier to pull out whole if the ground is damp. (it was almost impossible to get the whole weed when the ground was dry). There's a video of the hound dog below.



• Pruners

  We went through many different pruners, some didn't last a year (admittedly we expected a lot of them). The Fiskars hand pruner snipped tens of thousands of seed heads every year without complaint. The long handled pruners kept our trees and shrubs trim.

Videos of some of our "best gardening tools".

We at going green at home, call this hoe a swivel hoe. (He calls it an action hoe in the video)




This is the Hound Dog weed puller that we, at organic gardening tips, like.

Having the right tools for the task makes any job easier and more enjoyable.

Visitors to our Best Gardening Tools page may also be interested in the following pages.

Organic Gardening Tips
Stirrup Hoe
Dutch Hoe